The Rahuri Municipal Council of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra has become India’s first digitally connected local body. Under the government’s Digital India program, the council Thursday integrated DigiLocker for issuing all essential government documents.Muntazir Abbas | ETTelecom | April 29, 2016, 08:29 IST

The Rahuri Municipal Council of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra has become India’s first digitally connected local body. Under the government’s Digital India program, the council Thursday integrated DigiLocker for issuing all essential government documents.

The digital locker system aims to minimize the use of physical documents and facilitates sharing of e-documents across agencies. For example, citizens can now apply for certificates like birth, marriage and death online without physically visiting the municipal council as these documents will be available in the DigiLocker.

“This is a big beginning as people will start to appreciate the move to integrate services,” Prasad said.

He instructed department officials to take Rahuri Municipal Council as a case study to showcase so that the entire country could follow and take pro-active initiatives to encourage other councils.

More than 21 lakh documents have been uploaded to the digital locker while 517,2737 documents have been issued so far, he said, adding that the number will go up once integration with Aadhar is completed.

“This is a sign of changing India," Prasad said, adding that it could be replicated in other municipalities so that critical documents such as birth and death certificates could be stored.